[Nicodemus38]

Ive been reading magazines on reloading lately and have to scream at the industry.
At the moment all the reloading manuals say you ARE allowed to individually weigh each powder charge on a scale till your done loading. However they all seem to insinuate your just an accident prone amatuer until you get the 3-400 dollar priced powder measures/scales.

So whats the big benefit to purchasing a 400 dollar electric scale/measurer when your not intending to load more then a few hundred rounds a year?

[hogshead]

Stimulate the economy.

[Shoney]

You make someone richer??

Powder can change weight with changes in the humidity. Some benchrest shooters load only by volume. The theory being that powder that is higher in moisture content, will have less energy, because the weighing of the high moisture powder gives less powder that will burn.

[parker51]

I reload mostly for rifles and always weigh each load twice. First on an old Ohaus 10-0-5 manual scale and then on a Dillon digital scale. The manual scale is quite acurate but still not as precise as the Dillon. I have a Dillon progessive loader but I just prefer to load my rifle bullets a little more slowly and probably a little more precise. I thought about getting one of the high dollar scales but then decided I probably wouldn't gain anything but maybe a little time and then again probably not much of that.

[James2]

Its related to spending $200 for a fly rod when a $20 one will catch just as many fish in the hands of a fisherman. Hey, they have to write about something.

[MovedWest]

Its related to spending $200 for a fly rod when a $20 one will catch just as many fish in the hands of a fisherman. Hey, they have to write about something.

If you get away with $200 for a good fly rod, run like you're racing the devil.

I weigh every charge I load. If it teeters on a .1 of a grain I toss it back in the reservoir, blast my surfaces with compressed air, and weigh a new charge. I'm kinda anal like that. I even weigh my bullets to group them before loading.

The best scale I can find to suit my needs is the RCBS Chargemaster 1500. It measures the charge and weighs it afterward. If you load for competition, it's veeeeeery convenient. Save up for a bit or make sure Santa sees you at your best this year though... it ain't cheap.

-MW

[qajaq59]

Hey, they have to write about something. I'd say that James2 nailed it. No writing no pay check. lol

[loadedround]

Being a person who worked in and around laboratories for over 38 years, I feel qualified to comment on reloading balances(scales). By choice, I use a rather expensive Mettler balance for reloading since it became available when I retired. Having said that, I have also used the Pact, RCBS, and the Dillon electonic balances also. The two most important features of a balance is sensitivity and accuracy. Sensitiviity means the ability to differentiate beween lets say 1/10 gr as most balances claim. Reproducability is the ability of the balance(again read scale) to repeat the same weighing over and over again. The balances listed above, all designed for reloading and selling in the 120.00-150.00 range all seem to have all the sensitiviy and reproducibility needed to weigh in our our reloading ranges. The 19.95 to 24.95 balances sold on Ebay and elsewhere are plain junk and not worth your time or money. 3 or 400.00 balances are luxury items, and unless you want reloading room bragging rights, you're wasting money. The older beam balances sold by Lyman, Ohaus, RCBS are extremly well made and accurate, but slow. Beam and two pan balances are obsolete in most commercial and hospital laboratories these days because of their slowness and the chance of error.

[Nicodemus38]

i have always had a hard time with balance beam scales thats why i have been looking at electric scales lately.

How accurate are they scales in +/- variations? ive seen some electric scales, low price ones, that claim .5 grain accuracy but have a variation error of +/- .3 grains.
thats kinda scary in my opinion if my max load is 3.5 grs and the scale really gives me 3.8 grs of powder....

how well do the electric scales work when the battery life is getting low? i know they use "quality" battery technology, but even the high tech battery on my scope gets crappy once it hits the last 30% of battery power/lfe.

[Howard Roark]

So whats the big benefit to purchasing a 400 dollar electric scale/measurer when your not intending to load more then a few hundred rounds a year?

There is no benefit.

The benefit of buying a Denver or Acculab scale is that they react to smaller changes in weight, quicker and stay calibrated. A $99.00 PACT like the one I used to use would let me trickle three tenths of a grain of powder before the load cell would react. That is too late. I shoot competitively and load a lot of precisely weighed rounds often. I don't like to waste time dinking around picking up the pan and constantly re-zeroing the scale.

Cheap scales are fine for low volume if care is taken with their use. Top dollar scales react faster to changes in pan weight and stay in calibration longer.

[snuffy]

There is no benefit.

The heck there isn't! Try weighing something of unknown weight on a balance beam scale. You have to move weights around trying to GUESS where they will balance, then wait for the darn thing to quit swinging up and down.

Try sorting bullets on that balance beam, you either settle on how much above or below zero it is, or take the time to zero it for each bullet. Then there's catching light cast boolits that have that unseen void. Or weighing shot charges.

My RCBS/PACT, has worked flawlessly for 12 years. I got the dispensor 4 years after I got the scale. Both have worked flawlessly. The pact is a bit slow to register slight increases while trickling, but you learn to wait for it. No where near as long as waiting for the beam to settle down on a balance.

Now try to weigh something like a letter on your balance beam scale. What? :what:You can't? I can and do quite often, it's called the tare feature. Tare the empty plenum, put the letter on there, viola, ya know what it weighs.

Just don't loose the scale pan that came with your balance beam scale. Or damage it. Or get curious what it is that's shaking around in that chamber under the pan. loose some of those calibration counter weights in there, the scale is junk! Or break off the neat tab for lifting the pan, a trip back to the factory is in order for any of those events.

Those cheap electronic scales that are battery powdered are next to useless. In order to conserve battery power, they turn off after 30 seconds. Then they have to be re-calibrated before you can use them again.

[RandyP]

You can make safe, reliable and accurate ammo, pistol and rifle, using the $30 Lee Loader (whack it with a mallet) and their little plastic powder dipper scoop. Yes...you can and gazzillions of folks have.

IF you need (because you are a competition benchrest shooter) half-minute of angle accuracy at 1000 yards and need to produce loads that are as near perfect identical to one another, then you'll probably take a pass on the dippers -lol

If you are a casual pistol shooter, blasting paper zombies as a fun way to spend a few hours at the local range, the powder measure on your press will likely be way accurate enough to send that lead downrange. If you are a competition shooter trying to get your groups down from the present 1-1/2 inches to a more acceptable 1" at 10 yards, then you need all the accuracy in your gear that you can buy, already presort all your brass by headstamp and weigh each bullet and powder load to a gnat's eyelash.

Decide where you fit on the reloading/shooting curve and spend accordingly to please yourself, the only one you need to please by the way. Heck for just a couple hundred rounds a year, buying factory made makes more sense than reloading from a pure $$$ standpoint. But I reload cuz it's also a fun hobby.

[ranger335v]

"So whats the big benefit to purchasing a 400 dollar electric scale/measurer when your not intending to load more then a few hundred rounds a year? "

Zilch.

Get a beam scale from RCBS (Ohaus) or Redding, any one them, and ignore the FLAKY and expensive digital scales that would actually contribute nothing to your reloading.

[orrwdd]

The most practical way to measure powder is with a balance beam scale and a moderately priced powder measure. Lee Perfect Powder Measure or Lyman #55 will do fine.

Set the measure by verifying with the scale. Then check each 5th or 10th load with the scale. If they are within +/- .1 (one tenth) of a grain they should be fine. Electronic scales usually have a variance of +/- .2 grain or more.

Hope this helps.

Bill

[snuffy]

Zilch.

We certainly know your opinion, it's completely opposite mine. So the OP has both sides of the argument to choose from! Doesn't he?:scrutiny:

[Eyesac]

you either settle on how much above or below zero it is

That's what my problem is. Beam scales are (of course) accurate, but sometimes it's hard to "feel" confident in a "slightly" above/below zero reading...

I have both and like my cheap (120v) digital scale (RCBS $80).

[bhw4235]

My hornady scale that came with the classic lock and load kit, is junk period i have to weigh every charge 4 or 5 times and pretty much avg. it.:banghead:

[ranger335v]

"you either settle on how much above or below zero it is...That's what my problem is. Beam scales are (of course) accurate, but sometimes it's hard to "feel" confident in a "slightly" above/below zero reading..."

Not sure I understand. ALL of the beam scales I've ever seen have a +/- .5 grain scale at the end, "0" in the middle. Meaning, if the pointer sits at + .2 I add that to the preset poise total. Seems easy to be confident to me. ??

Using a powder scale for a postal meter seems inappropriate to me, I have a $10 thrift shop plastic postal scale that does quite well for that and it goes to a much higher level too.

"Waiting" for any magnetically damped scale to quit swinging eats up what, a couple seconds?

I don't weigh many bullets OR cases any more. Didn't see a lot of benefit to it for most rifles, none at all for handguns. When I do that, segregating them into seperate stacks really doesn't cut into my life style very much.

I suppose a digital scale's display is a bit more visually "concise" but it isn't any more accurate. It just gives a last number closest to what the load cell and circuitry hopes it should be. After it's warmed up enough. And if the line voltage is steady. And if the user has zeroed and tared it recently. And if no external electrical fields interfere. And if the load cell hasn't been damaged (they really aren't very tuff, nor do they respond to a trickler very well). And hope the temperature in the shop/loading room doesn't change. ???

My beam scale sits on a shelf at the correct height, about nose level, and very close to the left side of my powder measure, which is just to the left side of my press and about the middle of my bench top. I can drop a charge, set it on the scale, trickle it up, pour it in a case in a loading tray and quickly move to the next charge. No digital dumpster could be significantly faster. I suspect those who say their beam scales are "slow" have poor work flow patterns and poor locations with them!

When my cases are all charged I can eye-ball every one for a consistant powder colume and seat bullets pretty quickly too because I don't have to take a single step in the whole process. Considering the care I'm taking, how much "faster" could any digital scale be? (Remembering that I don't have to wait for it to warm up, I check zero ONCE and set the beam poises in a few seconds and afterwards KNOW every charge is valid.)

[Magoo]

If you get away with $200 for a good fly rod, run like you're racing the devil.

Amen...

It's embarrasing how much I've spent on graphite. Let's not even begin to talk about bamboo :what:. A quiver of good fly rods can easily match an arsenal of fine firearms (let flies and tying supplies equate to ammo and reloading supplies). Why oh why did I let both hobbies suck me in :banghead:.

I was lucky to have "inherited" a nice, lab grade scale from the university I attended...

[rfwobbly]

Well, when you consider the number of reloaders out there merrily going about their business with nothing more than dippers, it sort of makes you wonder just how accurate does one HAVE to be?

:D

[woods]

Well I certainly won't be without my RCBS 1500 Chargemaster! Sure it is expensive but it saves a lot of time and is more accurate than my beam scale. How can I say that? The beam scale is also subject to anomalies unless the knife blades are clean and it is level and that is subject to change while using on a set of charges.

When I got my 1500 I checked it against the balance beam. If there was a difference then I could always get the balance beam to eventually duplicate the digital but the digital always read the same. When I start the 1500 up I use the two 50 gr calibration wieghts to calibrate the machine (takes about 30 seconds) and when I place the empty pan on the platen it always weighs 155.0 gr. After rezeroing and dispensing a charge, when I lift the pan to funnel the powder into the case it always shows -155.0 gr. That is a check everytime you dispense a load.

But what you need to realize is the RCBS 1500 is a highly accurate powder thrower. IOW because of the design when the tube spins for the last time it may drop a few kernels too many off the tube. So just set it a little lower and nudge a few kernels off the tube to get the exact weight you want.

Set your seater up and seat a bullet as the dispenser is dispensing the next load. By the time you have seated the bullet and set up the next bullet the dispenser has beeped for the next load. By the time you are finished charging the cases you are through seating the bullets and are finished. That's where it saves time.

[Kentucky Jelly]

I love my RCBS chargemaster. It has gained my full trust. I am extremely anal when it comes to powder loads. Can you be as anal with cheaper equipment? Probably. Can you be as anal using the same amount of time with no aggravation? Probably not. I had a cheap battery digital before and if it had a new battery it was accurate. I got fed up and sprung for the chargemaster, and haven't looked back. I have yet to see it loose calibration during a session.

[ranger335v]

"But what you need to realize is the RCBS 1500 is a highly accurate powder thrower......Set your seater up and seat a bullet as the dispenser is dispensing the next load."

I'm delighted that you are happy with your digital dumpsters. (At those prices, anyone who has one that works should be happy!) But, not everyone seems to be so blessed. And, point of fact, what you have is much more than a simple scale; apples vs. watermellons.

I don't WANT to seat bullets until I have charged ALL of my cases in a block. I want to SEE that the powder levels are the same! ONLY when I can see them as a group can a visual check for consistancy be meaningful. And seating itself seems more consistant when done sequentially rather than a "start-stop-start" thing with weighing, pouring and then seating individual cases.

Different points of view equals different strokes I suppose...but I don't see a digital anything being useful to my reloading, nor for other low to moderate volume loaders such as the OP. (Even if I loved the things they would be a poor choice for Mr. Nicodemus, that WAS and remains my major point.)

[snuffy]

Ranger, I used to batch load using a RCBS uniflow measure. Looking at a loading block full of powdered cases is a good quality check. With my Pact "DUMPSTER" I do as woods and Kentucky jelly said. I haven't used a trickler for 20 years.

What could be more precise? You take the freshly dispensed charge from the scale, pour it into the case, then seat the bullet. While the dispenser is metering the next charge. Saves time because you don't have to handle the case twice. Less chance to be a klutz and dump a whole loading block of charged cases!:banghead::cuss:

That's the beauty of forums like this, you get to see the different methods that people use.

[Kentucky Jelly]

I will powder charge a whole loading block sometimes still. Some powders flow so fast I don't have time to seat while the next charge drops :neener: . And no I am not in a rush.

I will also use my 1500 when working up a batch of test pistol loads. Using a LNL AP I remove the powder dispenser and lay a appropriate sized funnel in the station. When the ram reaches the top I leave it and dump the powder in manually. This way i do not have to change dies between my progressive and single stage press. I do not have to mess with changing the powder drop in .1 grain increments every 10 rounds. Once I find my recipe I dial in the press's powder drop and run quantity. To me it is the most important piece of equipment I own. I would sacrifice my progressive press before my chargemaster! (not really tho wouldn't give up either)

[woods]

I don't WANT to seat bullets until I have charged ALL of my cases in a block. I want to SEE that the powder levels are the same! ONLY when I can see them as a group can a visual check for consistancy be meaningful. And seating itself seems more consistant when done sequentially rather than a "start-stop-start" thing with weighing, pouring and then seating individual cases.



Understand completely. You learn methods through repetitive actions and there are a couple of things that I have learned to do and trained myself to do when using the 1500 and seating at the same time. The first thing is that after I have finished swirling the powder down the funnel, I pick it up and tilt it towards me to see daylight through the bottom, avoids a powder bridge and a subsequent undercharge. The next is that when I pick up a charged case I visually inspect the powder level before putting it in the shell holder, avoids a no-charge. I have done it so many times that something feels wrong if I don't and I stop and figure it out.

The 1500 keeps track of how many you have dispensed and shows that when it beeps, it will stay on the display for about 5 seconds. That is also a check to make sure you have charged all your case. Like dropping 50 primers in a primer tray and getting to the end and you have a primer left, you best go looking. If you get to the end of the 50 cases and the 1500 says you loaded 49 (which I have never done), best go looking.

As far as seating consistancy, I'm not sure anyone pays more attention than I because I believe consistant seating is just as important if not more so than runout to accuracy. After sorting the bullets for base to ogive length, gaugine the neck sizes with pin gauges, using dry mica in the neck and using Competition seaters, my OAL does not vary more than .002" in an extreme case. I check with a comparator every 5 rounds or so.

After seating I check all loads with a comparator and separate any that have a variance over my tolerances. The 1500/seating process has not hindered that seating consistancy.

But, like you say, it takes all kinds to fill the freeway. I do find it telling that most (I won't say all) who have purchased and used the 1500 won't do without it and those that can not see it usefulness have never had one.

[ranger335v]

"I do find it telling that most (I won't say all) who have purchased and used the 1500 won't do without it and those that can not see it usefulness have never had one."

Cool gimmicks, no question. Maybe, just maybe, it's mostly those who tend to load large volumes that are buying them? And, again, after spending that much on a digital dumpster who's going to say it was a waste of money even if they don't need it?

[snuffy]

Cool gimmicks, no question. Maybe, just maybe, it's mostly those who tend to load large volumes that are buying them? And, again, after spending that much on a digital dumpster who's going to say it was a waste of money even if they don't need it?

Ranger, up till now, your posts on this thread were just your opinion. This one however is more like "my way is better, now quit disagreeing with me"!

You don't like digital scales or dispensers, we understand that. You just have to get over the fact that they actually work and some find them better than your way, get over it.

[Kentucky Jelly]

Cool gimmicks, no question. Maybe, just maybe, it's mostly those who tend to load large volumes that are buying them? And, again, after spending that much on a digital dumpster who's going to say it was a waste of money even if they don't need it?

Digital powder dispenser/scales are no gimmick. They are a tool that serves a purpose just like any of your equipment. Some would argue shooting is a waste of money. If i didn't like mine I would admit it, but would not be a waste of money I could list it in the classified and get almost as much as I paid for it right now.

It is like saying auto mechanics should not use air tools because they are a gimmick and a waste of money...